Useful as it can be the potential for gross misuse of the tech, particularly in light of how common LEO and governmental misuse of existing technologies are, is fairly scary to me.

We already can't count on various organizations not demanding cell records and the like in mass, the potential for them to similarly misuse private security cameras to bring almost omniscient surveillence is kinda scary.

I don't mind security cameras, in general, because they're pretty specific: you go to a gas station, and there's a camera watching the door and some general coverage of the interior to inhibit shoplifting. But combine a whole downtown's worth of cameras, some vein of biometric identification, and the government's lackadaisical attitude towards citizen privacy completely changes the equation.

It's rather like my attitude towards police use of drones: I don't mind them being used in a specific manner (e.g. SAR, a manhunt, known narcotic paths), but I strongly dislike the idea of using them for basic wide-area observation (just flying around the town watching for anything interesting). However, as I'm not really confident in LEO's ability to not misuse them, I tend to be fairly leery.

Useful as it can be the potential for gross misuse of the tech, particularly in light of how common LEO and governmental misuse of existing technologies are, is fairly scary to me.

We already can't count on various organizations not demanding cell records and the like in mass, the potential for them to similarly misuse private security cameras to bring almost omniscient surveillence is kinda scary.

I don't mind security cameras, in general, because they're pretty specific: you go to a gas station, and there's a camera watching the door and some general coverage of the interior to inhibit shoplifting. But combine a whole downtown's worth of cameras, some vein of biometric identification, and the government's lackadaisical attitude towards citizen privacy completely changes the equation.

It's rather like my attitude towards police use of drones: I don't mind them being used in a specific manner (e.g. SAR, a manhunt, known narcotic paths), but I strongly dislike the idea of using them for basic wide-area observation (just flying around the town watching for anything interesting). However, as I'm not really confident in LEO's ability to not misuse them, I tend to be fairly leery.

Accept mass blanketing of public spaces with security cameras when government accepts publicly accessible versions of the same in all official offices, bathrooms and hallways of power as well as at all meetings with registered lobbyists. I mean if they aren't doing anything they're ashamed of what's the issue?

We get the worst of the two at the end: no privacy and terrorism still...

Trying to pinpoint terrorists is very difficult due to the base rate: only 0.0000000000001% of the population are terrorists, so a good test has to be 1 - 0.0000000000001% = 99.9999...99999% accurate to be effective. Otherwise, you end up with many, many more false positives than real catches. This is not a problem of how good or complete your biometrics database is.

So pick your poison: getting an overwhelmingly amount of false positives that swamp law enforcement officers, or letting some terrorists through.

It's really sad that a differentiation needs to be made between TV dramas and real life. It's also really sad how low scientific literacy is, especially with technology as pedestrian as digital photography. You see the "tech gurus" on CSI Miami blowing up a 7-11 video feed and getting professional head-shot like quality from 250 feet away, with what is most likely a VGA camera. There's no understanding that the quality of the image is strongly correlated with the information captured (MP). You can't create that information if it isn't there.

A brief summary of TV Crime drama vs Real Life crime:

TV:A house gets broken into and robbed. The TV cop comes the next day and collects a few convenient fibers, hairs, and prints. He takes them back to the lab at 5:00PM and gets the results back the next morning, while matching the 8 perfect prints to an unknown bad guy in their master bad guy database.

Real life: (true story)My friend's house gets broken into while he was on vacation. The thieves stole his Xbox and about $350 worth of games. A detective comes 3 days later. There are no prints, fibers, and only one hair that is suspected to belong to my friend's live-in girlfriend (same color and length). The detective says he needs to get special permission to get the hair tested because the case only qualified for petty larceny. When asked when they would get the results of the DNA test back (should one be undertaken), the detective replied the fastest was 8 weeks, but an estimate of around 12 weeks was more reasonable.

We get the worst of the two at the end: no privacy and terrorism still...

Trying to pinpoint terrorists is very difficult due to the base rate: only 0.0000000000001% of the population are terrorists, so a good test has to be 0.0000000000001% accurate to be effective. Otherwise, you end up with many, many more false positives than real catches. This is not a problem of how good or complete your biometrics database is.

So pick your poison: getting an overwhelmingly amount of false positives that swamp law enforcement officers, or letting some terrorists through.

--B

I think you mean a test has to be beyond 99.9999999999999% accurate...

Any images (facial recognition) of those mercenaries from http://www.thecraft.com? You'll recall the FBI and Boston PD insisting that only approved, hand-selected photos would be analyzed -- they weren't interested in the mercenaries with the black backpacks and matching black-and-tan outfits. Didn't want to discuss them at all. Kind of odd for a supposed investigation. They certainly did not want any freelance help from the Infobahn.

So now we have one dead alleged perp who's not going to be talking, and a second alleged perp who somehow received damage to his throat and will not be talking. HOW VERY CONVENIENT. So, yeah, let's put up some photos of the perps to continue with the wave of hatred for what certainly appears to be a false flag operation.

It's rather like my attitude towards police use of drones: I don't mind them being used in a specific manner (e.g. SAR, a manhunt, known narcotic paths), but I strongly dislike the idea of using them for basic wide-area observation (just flying around the town watching for anything interesting). However, as I'm not really confident in LEO's ability to not misuse them, I tend to be fairly leery.

Indeed. The common term for this kind of thing is a "fishing expedition". My bet is that if, for example, you're an attractive female who likes to sunbathe in her fenced-in backyard or apartment roof, you're going to end up on a lot of police "watch lists".

It's rather like my attitude towards police use of drones: I don't mind them being used in a specific manner (e.g. SAR, a manhunt, known narcotic paths), but I strongly dislike the idea of using them for basic wide-area observation (just flying around the town watching for anything interesting). However, as I'm not really confident in LEO's ability to not misuse them, I tend to be fairly leery.

Indeed. The common term for this kind of thing is a "fishing expedition". My bet is that if, for example, you're an attractive female who likes to sunbathe in her fenced-in backyard or apartment roof, you're going to end up on a lot of police "watch lists".

Wasn't there a study in the uk that monitored the use of security camera operators? Basically found that the pan and zoom functions were used to focus in on young black males arround 10% of the time, young attractive women 80+% of the time.There was another study that attempted to monitor the attention of people watching security camera by using eyetracking cameras in the security rooms, it was shut down as they monitor watchers objected to having camera watching them in the work place.

We spent billions on this stuff, it don't really work unless the guy looks directly at the camera, in good lighting, while standing still.......

The 9/11 attack, WTC bombing in 94, USS cole, Boston bombing, and all of the other attacks against America have probably cost less than a couple of Million Dollars.We have spent more on body armour for NYPD officers than all the attacks cost combined.......

We need a better plan. Preferably one that doesn't cost so much we go bankrupt trying to be safe, all while giving up our liberties in the name of said safety our government has yet to provide.....

To be effective, facial recognition tech would have to know a priori who you are looking for. Otherwise, every time there is an incident, you would have to run every face in the the bad guys data base against all faces found in images of the scene! This will never do.

What is really needed is "behavioral recognition" software. Unfortunately, that kind of software only runs in human brains.

All of this is political show. The politicians spend exorbitant amounts of money to show their constituents how they are "doing something" even when that "something" is either useless or actually detrimental to the effort it is meant to convey.

So to fight the war on "terror" or "drugs" or "pedophiles" or the next great catchphrase to attract the public's attention, they will use whatever they can to get elected and stay elected even if it's useless or marginally helpful.

Facial recognition is just another tool in that arsenal. Next we'll be hearing (more) how they can read thoughts into people's actions and declare that the solution to the war on whatever. Even though thoughts are not always (usually?) acted upon.

Useful as it can be the potential for gross misuse of the tech, particularly in light of how common LEO and governmental misuse of existing technologies are, is fairly scary to me.

We already can't count on various organizations not demanding cell records and the like in mass, the potential for them to similarly misuse private security cameras to bring almost omniscient surveillence is kinda scary.

I don't mind security cameras, in general, because they're pretty specific: you go to a gas station, and there's a camera watching the door and some general coverage of the interior to inhibit shoplifting. But combine a whole downtown's worth of cameras, some vein of biometric identification, and the government's lackadaisical attitude towards citizen privacy completely changes the equation.

It's rather like my attitude towards police use of drones: I don't mind them being used in a specific manner (e.g. SAR, a manhunt, known narcotic paths), but I strongly dislike the idea of using them for basic wide-area observation (just flying around the town watching for anything interesting). However, as I'm not really confident in LEO's ability to not misuse them, I tend to be fairly leery.

Aside from outright selling this data to "third parties", give an example of LEO misuse of said data?

Any images (facial recognition) of those mercenaries from http://www.thecraft.com? You'll recall the FBI and Boston PD insisting that only approved, hand-selected photos would be analyzed -- they weren't interested in the mercenaries with the black backpacks and matching black-and-tan outfits. Didn't want to discuss them at all. Kind of odd for a supposed investigation. They certainly did not want any freelance help from the Infobahn.

So now we have one dead alleged perp who's not going to be talking, and a second alleged perp who somehow received damage to his throat and will not be talking. HOW VERY CONVENIENT. So, yeah, let's put up some photos of the perps to continue with the wave of hatred for what certainly appears to be a false flag operation.

Are you for real? I'm not going to even cite the reasons you are wrong.

On another note, I still feel a little spooked about general facial recognition surveillance. Not that my life is that exciting, so I really have nothing to hide. Still a little spooked. And I don't think flying drones around are any different than your local Police cruising around looking for trouble. The problem I have is when it's used for traffic enforcement or other means of generating revenue for more and fancier drones. It seems rare that police are actually preventing major crime. Perhaps to an extent, but there is no replacement for on the ground detective work. Which is what I wish local police were spending time doing instead of trying to catch me speeding when late to work. Facial recognition and Drones on non-criminal civilians... a little too much for me.

As annoying as it is to have to remind people that you can't 'enhance' a photograph with data that isn't there, or get DNA from hair in a day for petty larceny, lets remember that we USED to have to remind people that watched too much 'Perry Mason' that not all trials ended with SOMEONE confessing to the crime.

The 9/11 attack, WTC bombing in 94, USS cole, Boston bombing, and all of the other attacks against America have probably cost less than a couple of Million Dollars.We have spent more on body armour for NYPD officers than all the attacks cost combined.......

A couple million? You're off by a few orders of magnitude. Just for the most recent one in Boston, I remember seeing estimates that the cost of shutting down the city while everything was going on was well into nine figures. Even ignoring security measures, cleaning up NYC wasn't exactly cheap either.

Edit: Unless I'm illiterate and you meant "the costs to carry out the attacks", which is entirely possible.

There's a segment of the population (of the sort that are Alex Jones fans) who believe the government has a secret dossier on every citizen, that the government listens to all of our phone conversations, that it watches our every move, reads all of our emails and web postings, etc. ad nauseam.

I think this episode shows just how limited our government's surveillance capabilities really are. Not to say they won't get better, but I don't lose a lot of sleep at night worrying about Big Brother watching me.

I'm sure in Alex Jones' world the government knew who these guys were from the very beginning and simply "allowed" them to kill people for some nefarious (and unprovable) purpose . . .

Indeed -- I thought of Decker in "Blade Runner"; not only zooming in an analog photograph, but ROTATING the image! I'm not usually one to limit what science may be able to do in the future, but being able to create information that isn't there will be a neat trick.

There's a segment of the population (of the sort that are Alex Jones fans) who believe the government has a secret dossier on every citizen, that the government listens to all of our phone conversations, that it watches our every move, reads all of our emails and web postings, etc. ad nauseam.

I think this episode shows just how limited our government's surveillance capabilities really are. Not to say they won't get better, but I don't lose a lot of sleep at night worrying about Big Brother watching me.

I'm sure in Alex Jones' world the government knew who these guys were from the very beginning and simply "allowed" them to kill people for some nefarious (and unprovable) purpose . . .

There's a segment of the population (of the sort that are Alex Jones fans) who believe the government has a secret dossier on every citizen, that the government listens to all of our phone conversations, that it watches our every move, reads all of our emails and web postings, etc. ad nauseam.

I think this episode shows just how limited our government's surveillance capabilities really are. Not to say they won't get better, but I don't lose a lot of sleep at night worrying about Big Brother watching me.

I'm sure in Alex Jones' world the government knew who these guys were from the very beginning and simply "allowed" them to kill people for some nefarious (and unprovable) purpose . . .

I think according to the latest from Alex Jones, and some elected offical from New Hampshire, these guys are innocent, .... It's more a false flag inside job government opperation, ... Achieving exactly what i dunno but hey! Its from Alex so you know he's gotta have a sound reasonable logical argument loaded with verifiable facts backing it up otherwise he wouldn't say it.

The idea that facial recognition "failed" here is a misunderstanding of how the technology works.

These systems are built and tested assuming a database of high quality images (a gallery) against which low quality images will be searched. This gallery includes only mugshots and images where the subject has been knowingly captured in balanced lighting conditions.

Low quality images like those in this article are used only for searching this type of gallery, and do return matching candidates when the subject exists in the gallery. Matching multiple poor quality surveillance photos against one another is not expected to work.

It doesn't look like there were high quality pictures of either Tsarnaev brother in anyone's database. Depending on your point-of-view, this is either an intelligence failure, or privacy working as intended. If the elder Tsarneav had been questioned in 2012, he might been enrolled into one of these gallery.

The idea that facial recognition "failed" here is a misunderstanding of how the technology works.

These systems are built and tested assuming a database of high quality images (a gallery) against which low quality images will be searched. This gallery includes only mugshots and images where the subject has been knowingly captured in balanced lighting conditions.

Low quality images like those in this article are used only for searching this type of gallery, and do return matching candidates when the subject exists in the gallery. Matching multiple poor quality surveillance photos against one another is not expected to work.

It doesn't look like there were high quality pictures of either Tsarnaev brother in anyone's database. Depending on your point-of-view, this is either an intelligence failure, or privacy working as intended. If the elder Tsarneav had been questioned in 2012, he might been enrolled into one of these gallery.

The article actually states that both of therm should be in the gallery.

Are security cameras even HD quality these days? And you'd need good incentive to replace the cameras that are already installed as well. Maybe with a 4K sensor we might be able to get a decent amount of info from a crop, but I really wouldn't expect too much due to lack of focus.

It really doesn't matter if they work or not, the bombings will be used as justification to buy them anyway, along with more cameras and license plate readers, and whet ever else can be crammed into the proposal. The public must be sold security and given comfort, even if they do not exist, and the bombings will be used as the justification for more security, everywhere!